Shane O’Neill – Straight from the Classroom to NBC

Television and Digital Media graduate Shane O’Neill will be bidding the School of Communication and Media good bye in May, but the experiences he had while in school have enabled Shane to seamlessly transition from university graduate into a budding television career as an associate producer for NBC Left Field, a new experimental video unit aimed at “understanding human beings through film, technology and heaps of creativity.”

But, Shane points to one moment during his years in SCM that put his career path into sharp focus.  As he states, “Essentially my education can be summed up by what Lester Holt told us during his Broadcaster of the year acceptance speech. We have to be a Swiss army knife of the newsroom.”

And, Shane has indeed honed a number of highly marketable production skills in the SCM TVDM program that have obviously served him well.  Among the highlights he lists are serving as the Assistant Director for the 2017 NJ Governors Election SCM Live Coverage and Head Editor of the Video Production Club’s Late Night Show “Signing Off.”  In addition, he also served as show producer for the following Carpe Diem Episodes: “College Years…” and Punk Music in New Jersey.

Television production has been Shane’s passion since his high school days, and that helped him choose the Montclair SCM over other options.  “I came to the decision to come to Montclair because it had a growing TV program and it’s a quick train ride into the city! The heart of the TV Industry!”

Shane quickly learned the value of an outstanding faculty.  “Professors are fully aware that the TV industry is in flux right now so they prepared me to be multi-functional as a media professional. Companies now are looking for people who can film, produce, write and edit.”

O’Neill applied their wisdom to his education.  He learned as much as possible about shooting, writing, editing, producing, studio operations, and everything related to creating programming.

Beyond the classroom education, Shane took advantage of internships, and those enabled him to develop contacts in the industry, which helped him land his first staff job, ultimately leading to his NBC Left Field position.

Hopefully, Shane O’Neill’s career path will lead him to a position as an editor or producer for NBC.   He’s fully aware that the road may be rough along the way, but his personal philosophy will keep on the trail – “You have to go with the flow of the world around you. Life will get tough sometimes, but you need to power through the hard times, because in the end it’s all going to turn out just fine.”